Opponent: Montreal Expos Location: Busch Stadium End of day Sammy Sosa total: 66 End of day Ken Griffey Jr. total: 55 The Cardinals were well out of any playoff picture and had already clinched a winning season, so normally the last couple of games would have been exhibitions to rest starters or a chance for the hometown fans [...]
Before we recorded Gateway on Sunday night, Tara and I were talking and I mentioned that it’s been a long time since the Cardinals played their way out of a playoff position they held going into the last week of the season. They’ve stolen some spots late–we all remember the most notable one of those–and [...]
Home run #: 66 Date: September 25 Opponent: Montreal Expos Location: Busch Stadium Pitcher: Shayne Bennett Score: 2-2 Inning: 5 Outs: 2 Runners on: 1 Distance: 375 feet End of day Sammy Sosa total: 66 End of day Ken Griffey Jr. total: 55 One of the most vivid recollections I have from the home run race is just how short the span [...]
The legendary advice from pitching coaches is “Throw strikes. Babe Ruth is dead.” (In the mid-00s I personally modified it to “Throw strikes–Ruth is dead and McGwire’s retired.”) It’s advice that, if heeded last night, might have had the Cardinals still comfortably in the playoff picture rather than hanging by their fingernails as they are [...]
That’s what we always want, right? We want the Cardinals to be playing the last couple of weeks in September with something on the line that’s not just playing time or trying out the new guys. We don’t want to see that E next to their name in the magic number column. You want to [...]
Home run #: 65 Date: September 20 Opponent: Milwaukee Brewers Location: County Stadium Pitcher: Scott Karl Score: 0-0 Inning: 1 Outs: 1 Runners on: 1 Distance: 423 feet End of day Sammy Sosa total: 63 End of day Ken Griffey Jr. total: 52 We said last time that if you wanted a seat to history, County Stadium in Milwaukee was the place [...]
After the Cardinals had been run through by the Dodgers, only spared complete annihilation by an apparently time-traveling Adam Wainwright, the series with Atlanta loomed large in front of the team from St. Louis. Could they go into the home of a division leader and be effective? Would they be able to hold on to [...]
Home run #: 64 Date: September 18 Opponent: Milwaukee Brewers Location: County Stadium Pitcher: Rafael Roque Score: 0-2 Inning: 4 Outs: 0 Runners on: 1 Distance: 423 feet End of day Sammy Sosa total: 63 End of day Ken Griffey Jr. total: 52 The last couple of weeks of the 1998 season were like a slow-motion boxing fight when it came to [...]
It probably wasn’t overstatement to say that the Cardinals’ season really hung on a thread last night. Losers of four straight, including three to their nearest competitor in the wild card race, St. Louis had fallen out of the playoff spot they’d occupied for so long and another loss would have them even further behind [...]
Home run #: 63 Date: September 15 Opponent: Pittsburgh Pirates Location: Busch Stadium Pitcher: Jason Christensen Score: 8-5 Inning: 9 Outs: 1 Runners on: 0 Distance: 385 feet End of day Sammy Sosa total: 62 End of day Ken Griffey Jr. total: 51 Given the buildup, given the incredible height that Mark McGwire reached on September 8, it’s probably not too [...]
I feel like setting this up is fairly unnecessary, but then again Tara Wellman, noted non-Star Warsian, might read this and I’d hate for her to be confused. In Return of the Jedi, after destroying Jabba the Hutt’s Rancor monster, all of our heroes are loaded onto a skiff and sent out to the Pit [...]
That really wasn’t the way this weekend was supposed to go. With the Tigers well below .500 and eliminated either technically or practically from any sort of offseason plans that didn’t involve golfing, the Cardinals were supposed to go into Detroit and at least take two of three if they couldn’t get the sweep. Instead, [...]
